Grief is a Beautiful Seed
Written by Alisha Irving - April 26th, 2026
It was at once so familiar and yet
so unrecognisable.
A tremor prolonged by silence,
sown into memory:
a groan reverberating as roots ruptured the foundations.
Echoes accumulated,
growing into this stillness,
pushing out the air
that carried my smile when I was a child.
That I held in while it was planted.
And that finally left
once the conditions were right:
It had metastasised.
I neglected warmth for this greenhouse,
to cultivate that perfect humidity and
concentration of light which produces fervent growth
as it continued to fill the empty space –
Hollowed out like a smile, or a laugh, or a drawn-out breath.
I wanted to cut it out
but how relentlessly alive it was!
Pulsing beneath skin, tendrils branched out
writhing through silence,
nurturing decay.
And still, I am told to ‘breathe’ as I choke on the
overflow of repressed words. Words pressed up
against enamel and
soft tissue. Words left to echo
in the quiet, absorbed by
masses of roots, crowded together to
draw them in.
And even as they tremble from their impact, clawing
further into the soil to hold their place,
they endure.
So, how can you breathe?
As the air presses down upon you and,
drawing your body to itself,
you wither.
When the words you wish that you could’ve said
lock your jaw
and wrestle against grinding teeth?
Eventually, you forget the unsaid words,
those you forced down because no one could take them for you,
words only your body still remembers, crying out in that greenhouse.
Your words traded just to grow this sickly seed!
So don’t tell me to ‘Just breathe’!
As if the air isn’t so heavy that speaking exhausts my lungs,
where language is worn out in tiring exchange,
splintering with each
‘thank you’ to an
‘I’m sorry’ or ‘How strong’ and
snaps finally, a plea
– only for the sound to be stifled by the hands of a child who
clutches the pieces, sinking slowly through skin.
As sap sticks to their fingers, they smile
as though nothing ever happened.
What an unfortunate habit to learn so young!
And how it grew so out of my control!
So, uneven,
short and soundless
they escape,
far from that cavernous sound that stagnates.
Witness that overbearing life!
That flourishing, flat-lining life as it fills and consumes.
And ‘Grieve! Child, grieve’, for you are just a seed and ‘You have so much room to grow!’
Just step out into the cold, and compress
the dead leaves under your feet.
Pretend it is locked
far away, like roots
that grow within.
Why, Grief is such a beautiful seed!
This poem stems from the silent yet cumulative echoes of grief that persist in my daily life. I initially sought to portray the immediate, overwhelming grief that I experience as an adult, years after profound loss. However, as the piece developed, it became apparent that I could not represent its true nature without acknowledging the child I was when it entered my life. At the time, the adults’ way of comforting me was to tell me my grief would become ordinary – that I would feel it less as I grew older, and as the loss receded into the past. Through ‘Grief is a Beautiful Seed’, I wanted to refuse this idea: to show that when grief takes root in childhood, you can grow into it, rather than out of it.
- Alisha Irving